


Introductions

by hootenanny



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Inspired by That '70s Show, M/M, its not even like donna and eric aren't a couple i just didn't write her in and she is ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hootenanny/pseuds/hootenanny
Summary: It's one thing to date a guy and it's another thing when they meet your friends.
Relationships: Eric Forman/Buddy Morgan
Comments: 10
Kudos: 207





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bee_activist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bee_activist/gifts).



In the Forman’s driveway, the Vista Cruiser sputtered to a halt as Eric pulled out the keys. Buddy shifted to open the car door, but Eric stayed firmly in place, fingers tapping intelligible morse code into the dashboard. 

“Hey,” Buddy remarked. “If you’re worried about your friends being assholes, I was already well aware of the fact.” He smirked in a knowing sort of way— knowing that he could get away with teasing because it was Eric he was talking to.

“No, no, it’s… more than that,” he responded. Maybe it was simply the implication of bringing Buddy over to smoke with his friends. He started off thinking that he’d never have a crush on a guy. Then he thought he’d never kiss a guy. Then he thought he’d never date a guy. Now he was introducing Buddy to the gang, which he was sure he’d  _ never ever _ do. It was like all bets were off.

Buddy looked to Eric, anticipating a follow-up. Instead, Eric abruptly slid out of the Cruiser and shut the door behind him a little bit too hard. “But yeah, they’re total assholes.”

“And I, personally, cannot  _ wait _ to meet their acquaintance.”

-

In a haze of smoke and the faint sound of vinyl, Eric found himself in an all-familiar circle with a slightly less familiar someone sat snugly next to him. He wasn’t sure if it was the pot or the overall circumstances that made everything feel so unreal. Watching Buddy take the joint from Hyde and wrinkle his nose as he took a drag felt like some bizarre interdimensional crossover; like when the Superfriends did television ads for Corn Flakes.

Buddy passed the joint over to Eric again and, as he took it between his fingers, Eric’s eyes drew lazily towards Buddy’s hands. They rested on the table but continued to creep back and forth in conversation. He noticed little idiosyncrasies like that all the time, and when he did, he took a mental picture.

“So, let me get this straight.” Kelso, wide-eyed, across the table, was engrossed in the conversation. “If there was a super hot girl here, right now, you wouldn’t even  _ think _ about bangin’ her?”

“Gotta be honest, Kelso, the chances are pretty low,” Buddy shrugged.

Fez shook his head in disbelief. “You poor, poor son of a bitch.”

Hyde piped up. “Disagree there, Fez. Imagine all the time we’d have if we weren’t constantly talking about women. Buddy’s a  _ lucky _ son of a bitch.”

“Come on, guys, just lay off him.” This is what Eric had been most dreading— the way his friends would grill Buddy on the whole… gay thing. Because then Buddy would feel bad, then Eric would feel bad, and he’d go back and forth and back and forth in his head as always.  _ Why’d I introduce him to the gang? Why’d I think he’d like me anyway? How’d I get into this whole situation in the first place? _

“Oh, it’s all good!” Buddy’s voice cut through his inner monologue. “They’re right. I know I’ve got too much time on my hands ‘cause I’ve resorted to dating Eric.” He shook him gently by the shoulders, and the defensiveness that Eric attempted to muster against his mean little boyfriend was immediately shut down when he noticed the word that had just passed through his head.

_ Boyfriend. _

“Oh, Forman!” interjected Kelso. “That was a homosexual  _ BURN! _ ”

-

The Cruiser was parked in front of Buddy’s place and the night had tapered off slowly like the end of a record. Something about the end of the night drew both Eric and Buddy to long, drawn out silences. Early on it felt right to continue with their back-and-forth conversations, and those were nice in their own right. But the silences that they’d recently grown so comfortable with were good too.

“They ask a lot of stupid questions,” Eric murmured, although it was ambiguous if it was meant for Buddy or for himself.

“Your friends were pretty cool, you know.” Buddy turned his eyes towards Eric, who peered up at him in response.

“Yeah?”

“If I’m being honest, I was a little nervous to meet them at first, too. I thought I might feel left out, or judged, or something.” Buddy’s voice trailed off a bit at the end. “But I had a really good time.”

“Me too.”

Another pause.

“So,” Eric said, tugging mindlessly at a thread coming loose from his sweater, “Have you actually had a boyfriend before?”

“Once or twice.”

“And, uh, what’s that like?”

“Lots of impromptu knife fights.”

“Hey, come on, seriously.”

Buddy’s eyes narrowed in search for a better answer. “Sometimes,” he finally decided on, “if you’re lucky, it feels a little bit like this.” With an arm around the headrest, Buddy let his head fall sleepily against Eric’s shoulder. “But why are you dying to know?”

Eric turned slowly to his right, looking at who was nudged against him. He was obviously tired and, still, just as quick witted in how he spoke. Eric had the words in his head; they’d been there all day.

“I guess I was thinking maybe you could be my..”

_ HOOOOOONNNNKKKKK! _

Eric’s elbow, which had jammed into the steering wheel horn, recoiled from the shock of the abrupt sound. From the passenger seat, Buddy began laughing like Eric had never heard before. The neighbor’s windows began to light up one by one. 

Eric placed his head firmly in his palms. “Don’t look at me. This is the worst day of my life.” Between the gaps in his fingers he could clearly see that Buddy was having an excellent time with the circumstances and couldn’t wipe the smug grin off his face, even at Eric’s latent pleading.

“You embarrassed yourself _?  _ In front of me _? _ That is  _ so  _ cute.”

“Do not. Look. At me. Ever again.”

“I won’t make any promises.” Buddy got out of the car and turned to peek through the rolled-down window. “But I might’ve caught what you were about to say there... and I think I’d really like that.” He left Eric with one more lopsided smile before heading into his house. The front door shut, and the silence returned once again. 

Eric drove home slowly, picking apart the ambiguities of the night until they rattled meaninglessly through his head. There were a lot of words that were missing: for himself, for Buddy, for his friends. Still, something gave him the brief indication that he’d finally said something right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't tell if it was more incriminating to write an entire eric/buddy fic and post it online OR to have a half-written eric/buddy fic in my google drive and it turns out the first option was slightly more appealing. thank u.


	2. Fridays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they fall into a routine.

It had been a couple weeks since they had started this new set-up: Buddy made a stop on his way to school to eat breakfast with Eric. It was a nice change of pace-- a natural progression, almost-- but it always left Eric worrying about every little detail. For one, he had the whole endeavor timed perfectly to minimize any contact between Buddy and Red, because those were two people in his life that had absolutely no business interacting. They knew of each other, of course, but it wasn’t like Buddy was just Eric’s chemistry partner anymore. And that was the other thing. Kitty kept calling him Eric’s “little friend” and it was driving him nuts. Did she call all of his friends that, or was it a discreet nod to how much time they’d been spending together? Did she know something she shouldn’t? Damn that intuition.

But this morning, a half-asleep Eric heard a faint knock on the front door, and then some muffled small talk.

“Eric, your little friend is here!” Kitty called up.

He scrambled to untangle himself from the sheets and bolted towards the stairs, nearly missing a couple on his way down.

“Well, good morning.” Buddy was put together as always, with his bag slung around his shoulder and a hand in his jacket pocket. “Sorry I’m early, but I must say, I love the outfit.” 

Eric hadn’t even realized he’d been getting dressed every morning just to see Buddy until he was standing in front of him in a pair of Star Wars pajama pants, and they made him want to crawl away and die. “I just- I slept in late and I- I didn’t kno-”

“Hey. Don’t worry about it. You look... spiffy.” Buddy gave him an endearing grin and headed towards the kitchen in what had become a routine. Eric had to admit he liked the sarcastic comments as much as the sincere ones. It’s what made the two of them work so well, he thought, the underlying earnestness in the way they talked to each other. Meanwhile, Kitty had started making a little extra breakfast for their new guest in the mornings and she was thoroughly enjoying it- she’d started setting out the juices neatly on the countertops simply because she had someone new to impress.

“Eric, how many of your friends are you gonna bring into my house until it turns into a soup kitchen?” Red barked from the dining table. Eric tensed up at the sound, eyes guiltily darting to Buddy and his plate of bacon and scrambled eggs. 

Buddy piped up to plead his case. “Sorry Mr. Foreman, Kitty said I could stop by for breakfast before school, and-”

“Whose car is that in the driveway?” Red motioned to the red Trans-Am, freshly cleaned and shining in the morning light.

“Mine, sir.”

“You don’t say?” Red’s voice softened as he gazed out the screen door at the car. He stood to open the door, peering longingly at the driveway. “You wouldn’t mind if I take a look..?”

“No, sir, not at all.” Buddy followed hesitantly behind him, taking a few bites of his breakfast here and there. Eric watched as Red strolled slowly around the Trans-Am and finally sat in the driver’s seat. Their chat was indistinct through the glass door, but Red had found the automatic windows and was fixated on their space-age wonder. For Eric, it was completely out of character to see his dad so pleasant around any of his friends that he took in every second of it. Buddy must have that effect on people.

“Well, would ya look at that.” Kitty sat down at the table, smiling warmly in Eric’s direction. “They’re getting along just fine.”

-

Eric always felt as if Fridays went faster than the rest of the week. The mundane plot points of the day were checked off, and then he was back with Buddy to study, and they’d go see a movie, and then they’d linger in his car a little longer than necessary. Buddy liked to pull out the cliches every now and again- everyone reaches for the popcorn at the same time, everyone puts their arm around someone when they yawn; that’s just how it works.

And then they were kissing, and they were listening to the new wave on the radio that neither of them understood all that well, and it was always sort of a fumbling thing that made sense even when it didn’t. But Eric hadn’t felt right at all, not since breakfast.

“Buddy?” His voice sounded like somebody else’s as he pulled away from the kiss.

Buddy could sense the gravity in his tone. “What’s up?”

“I’m sorry about Red.”

Buddy shrugged it off, as he so often did. “Red? He was alright. A little intimidating, but he wasn’t so bad.”

“That’s the thing.” Eric wasn’t looking at Buddy anymore, he was looking at the ceiling of the car as he tried to pull his thoughts together. “It’s like, he’s okay for now, but then when he finds out about, y’know-” Eric looked over to Buddy for confirmation, and he nodded in that knowing way that always made him feel heard. “-well, if he finds out, he’s gonna turn on me, and you, and… I don’t want to rope you into that.”

They were quiet for a second, and the radio sounded louder than ever. Buddy’s hands crept towards Eric’s in a gesture he hoped conveyed some sort of meaning. He spoke up.

“You’re not roping me into anything, Eric.” Their fingers were loosely entangled now, and Buddy gave Eric’s hands a light squeeze to punctuate his point. “I really, really-” Buddy stuttered as his mind switched between the word he should say and the word he wanted to say. “-like you.”

Eric leaned in this time, as timid as he was, and kissed Buddy. He let go of his grasp and rested his hand against his cheek, just for a brief moment, before he broke away again.

“This radio station sucks, man, why are we always listening to it?”

“I thought _you_ liked it.”

-

They talked for longer than expected, and Eric made it back home sometime around 1:30 in the morning. He hadn’t told his parents he’d be out all day, let alone past midnight, and surely he'd never hear the end of it. Not to mention the rake propped up against the deck, which he’d completely forgotten about. The scattered leaves crunched underneath his boots, and he knew Red would have a field day tomorrow chewing him out.

He made his way through the back door, and right as he wedged the door open as quietly as possible, he spotted Red standing in the unlit kitchen, clinking the ice around in his glass of water. 

“Spend all day with that floppy-haired kid and can’t spare an hour to rake the leaves?”

“Well- it’s a funny story, actually-”

“No it’s not. Dumbass.”

End of conversation. Defeated, Eric started heading towards his room so he could finally collapse into bed, but he could still feel Red staring holes into his back.

“He’s alright.”

Eric turned around slowly, curiously trying to interpret what his dad had said. Red looked stern, no surprises there, but he was looking Eric right in the eyes. He knew more than he was letting on. 

“What?”

“I said, he’s alright.” 

Red slunk back upstairs, leaving Eric standing idle in the kitchen. Their conversations were always brief, no doubt about it, but this one really meant a lot. Maybe Eric had been fooling himself this whole time. Maybe, for once in his life, he deserved for things to work in his favor. Eventually he snapped out of his daze and he retreated back to the warmth of his own room, and fell asleep almost instantaneously. His last lucid thought, ringing in his ears, was:

_damn that intuition_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what can i say i have a very specific mood where i'm like i can and will write this all day. a specific mood where my jokes about writing buddy and eric fic become real and then i am just simply the owner of buddy and eric fic. sucks to suck


End file.
